Commentary on the economic , geopolitical and simply fascinating things going on. Served occasionally with a side of snark.

Monday, February 3, 2014

Despite at least 17.7 million spent on security including snipers hidden in the Football Stadium , bomb sniffing dogs , 700 hundred extra troopers , a 24 hour FBI Command Center , TSA Agents , Chopper patrols , a No Fly Zone and patrons running a gauntlet that involved 5 separate check on credentials - how did this joker ( Mills ) embarrass all of those PROs by crashing a post game press conference with ease ? And what if Mills carried a bomb and detonated it on live TV ?

The much vaunted multi-million dollar security ring put in place at taxpayer expense for this year’s Super Bowl was easily penetrated by a man with a fake pass and an excuse that he was “late for work,” yet another example of how government security theater cannot protect you and is a colossal waste of money.

The bill for all this – which ran into tens of millions of dollars – was paid for by taxpayers despite the NFL already getting a sales tax break at a further cost of $8 million to residents of New Jersey. Also remember that the NFL is tax exempt and pays no federal income tax on its vast profits.

However, 30-year-old Matthew Mills made a mockery of all this when he crashed a post-game press conference to tell the viewing millions that the 9/11 attacks were, “perpetrated by people in our own government,” urging them to “investigate 9/11,” before being dragged away.

How did Mills penetrate the fearsome ring of steel erected around the MetLife Stadium? He used a fake pass from an old music festival and claimed he was “late for work.”

Mills hopped on board an employee bus headed for the stadium and relied on the same excuse every time he was confronted by security.

“I just said I was running late for work and I had to get in there,” Mills told NJ.com. “It was that simple.”

“I didn’t think that I’d get that far,” Mill said. “I just kept getting closer and closer. Once I got past the final gate and into the stadium, I was dumbfounded.”

Mills’ actions left NJ.com’s A.J. Perez to wonder, “With all of the millions spent on security, how safe is the Super Bowl anyway?”

Although Mills used his opportunity to send a warning about false flag terrorism staged by governments, his actions proved that governments, no matter how much money they spend on invasive and unconstitutional security measures, cannot protect the public from terrorists.

What if Mills had been an Al-Qaeda militant (you know, the kind that the State Department affords VIP access)? What if his intention had not been a ‘truth bomb’ but an actual bomb?

In addition to the ease with which Mills made it through security, Infowars reporters said that their tickets were not even checked at any point of the journey to and inside the MetLife Stadium, despite John Durkin, special agent in charge of the TSA Newark field office, asserting beforehand that only fans who showed a valid ticket would even be allowed to board the train to the game.

It’s unsurprising that authorities have remained silent on how easy it was for Mills to penetrate security, since any admission that they failed would merely reinforce the fact that America’s multi-billion dollar terrorism-fear-security complex is a monumental fraud and a monstrous waste of taxpayer money.

EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ — Attendees to Super Bowl XLVIII will witness yet another exposé of excessive security and infringements of civil rights.

Fans entering MetLife Stadium will be stopped at checkpoints, searched, put through metal detectors, and filmed. Their vehicles may be inspected and their possessions will be limited to what they can fit into a single clear plastic baggie. This treatment has become the norm for the NFL.

Fan screenings begin at 2 p.m. on game day. Fans will enter heated welcome pavilions at MetLife Stadium, where they can expect to encounter walk-through metal detectors, X-ray machines, K-9 dogs and pat-down searches. They are encouraged to arrive early to avoid delays and to speed up stadium entrance.

“We are xraying every piece of equipment, every cargo, every beverage, seat cushion, every piece of merchandise, food… everything that is going in the stadium has to be x-rayed before it goes in,” Kevin McCabe, Chief of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency told Fox.

While there is no specific threat posed to the game, security is preparing for bombings and shooters. “I would list them in priority order being a suicide bomber, a vehicle laden with explosives and a mass shooter or mass shooters similar to the Kenyan mall, or the Mumbai incidents,” said Ed Hartnett, former head of the NYPD Intelligence Unit.

“If you have an active shooter or you have anyone who may have a bomb. Snipers have a better angle then anyone who is on the ground to actually hit that target,” explained Agent Jonathan Gilliam to MY9NJ.

While the overall experience is highly intrusive and distasteful to some, the stadium is a privately owned building, and the terms of admission may be determined by the owner. (Although weirdly, the stadium resides on the Meadowlands complex, which is land owned by the citizens of New Jersey.)

A more compelling issue arises from all the excessive policing taking place around the stadium, on public land, involving the police and federal government.

The Super Bowl is designated a Level One national security threat by DHS, signifying that Homeland Security Presidential Directive 5 is in effect. This means the federal government grants itself the power to intervene with and lead all security operations over a given event and its surrounding region. In other words, money and manpower are thrown at the event with reckless abandon.

The perimeter of the stadium will be patrolled by helicopters in the sky and gunboat patrols in the water, armed with heavy weapons, thermal cameras, radiation detectors, and other high-tech gadgets.

“Everything that we’re doing has an air, land and sea concept,” said Lieutenant Colonel Edward Cetnar of the New Jersey State Police, who is in charge of security at the game itself. He has 27 security subcommittees which include members of DHS, the FBI, and the NYPD.

The parking lots of the stadium will be lined with license-plate scanners to log every vehicle that arrives. The vehicles may then be searched. According to NBC News, federal agents have declared that they will be searching every truck that arrives — no probable cause needed.

There will be over 100 law enforcement agencies converging in and around the game. The police presence will be truly massive. Mobile Command Units are parked on almost every block. NYPD mobile watchtowers are set up along the sidewalks.

“At 4:30 in the morning, if you had been up, you would have seen a couple of military jets, F-15s, streaking across the skies of New York City chasing a plane. They actually drill this when everybody’s asleep so nobody sees anything that would alarm them in broad daylight,” said NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence John Miller told “CBS This Morning.”

National Guard soldiers will be on the ground participating in security, wrote Politico.

Truck checkpoints will be located on the streets around the city, according to CBS News. Evidently vehicles will be stopped without probable cause and searched.

Public transportation is littered with police and federal agents, searching people on a whim.

The TSA started its “random checkpoints” on Friday, two days before the game. The agents were searching and swabbing ladies’ purses.

“It feels secure,” said Robert Caballero to ABC News after his wife and daughter had their purses searched by TSA agents at the train station. “It’s a great idea. In this day, unfortunately, it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

Says the TSA on its blog: “Super Bowl fans may encounter TSA Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) teams on local transportation venues, including commercial and general aviation facilities and mass transit.” These armed VIPR teams are free to roam around in and around public transportation venues and perform“suspicionless” searches on demand.

Train riders are growing accustomed to TSA checkpoints. This weekend, riders will be searched without probable cause before boarding and after exiting. According to ABC News:

The TSA has also added 200 screeners at Newark to handle the larger volume of travelers, and Farbstein said TSA agents from LaGuardia Airport will be performing screening on train passengers at New York Penn Station and New Jersey’s Secaucus Junction on Super Bowl Sunday.

All fans boarding trains to the stadium from Secaucus Junction Station, the start of NJ Transit’s 6.8-mile line to the stadium in East Rutherford, must pass through a security checkpoint manned by TSA agents.

Only people who show agents a valid Super Bowl ticket will be allowed to pass through the security checkpoint and board a train, said John Durkin, special agent in charge of the TSA Newark field office.

The NYPD will utilize its teams of officers in stopping, boarding and inspecting subway trains; and subway container inspection and explosive trace detection, in which officers examine bags and other containers carried by passengers entering the subway system to detect explosives.